So, I’ve posted before about the website I’m making. It’s essentially a searchable database of movies, books, TV shows and video games. It’ll allow you to search by different relationship types, content warnings, genre, protagonists, romance level etc. It was initially just a way for find romance free or limited romance media (or get warning in advance when you plan to watch something), but I’ve realised all those other things could be helpful.
I’m far enough in that I want some specific thoughts as I continue. I’ve done some bolding to try to make it easier to pick info out, hopefully it’s clear. Under a cut for length.
First up: what content warnings do you want to see as options? It will be possible to enter your own, but obviously things already submitted won’t have had that info requested by default.
For each one you can select [don’t know/maybe/once/some/lots/], and search by the different levels (either at least, at most, or exactly). Does that seem good enough?
Is it a good idea to have a further text input so you can describe what happens and when - and should it only show the selected CW at a time?
Is [no/low/some/significant romance] good enough for romance level? There will be other options that are more specific, but I plan for that to be the go-to simple filter.
I will allow people to add relationship types per submission. This will include relationship type, genders involved, and if it’s a protagonist/secondary/background relationship, and be entirely searchable.
So far I’m including Sexual, Romantic, Romantic and sexual, Friendship, Strong Friendship, QPR, Mentor, Found Family, Sibling, and Parental as options. There will also be a section for a relationship overview, and for TV shows there can be an entry per season.
Should I also have the ability to mark them as healthy or dysfunctional/abusive? Or are content warnings the place for that?
Any other requests? Suggestions?
For protagonist identity, I will have the ability to select gender, trans/cis, race, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, and romantic orientation. So then people should be able to refine by such traits, as they want to.
I’m thinking, for race at least, that it would be a good idea to be able to select between white/PoC, and further have options drawn from previous entries as well as the ability to type your own. Maybe I should do similar for the other options? I don’t want to provide inadequate options/miss any out.
Is having this category helpful?
It’s easier to store as separate tags, but for multiple protagonists it could turn up a result with an ‘x’ character and a ‘y’ character, rather than one who’s ‘x’ and ‘y’. Is that a problem for people?
Finally - the submission process. This is what I’m having the most trouble deciding. I want it to be as open as possible, but I also want to make sure it’s accurate.
Should submissions be members only and accountable to a username, or something anyone can do?
I can potentially have submissions be unverified by default, and have either a manual verification process (through mods or myself), or through user votes. They would still be searchable, but you’d have to manually select to include them. Thoughts?
For editing - should people be able to edit their own submission at will (or until verified)? I also plan to let people suggest changes - I was thinking of relying on a voting system to verify them (so - a certain number of votes get the change made). Does that seem appropriate?
And, of course, suggest anything else you can think of! Be it a change of name, feature you want that I haven’t mentioned, or anything else! This is a very new thing for me, so I want to hear anything you have to say.
For anyone interested in this project, it now has a blog!
For those who don’t know, I’m designing RomoAlert to be an aro media database (using user submissions) classifying books/movies/TV shows/video games by romantic (and non-romantic) content. It’s expanded past that though, and will also let you filter by: content warnings; character traits/identity; common tropes; relationship types; sexual content.
Feel free to send in suggestions such as: content warnings, classification systems, accessibility features.
I can’t guarantee I can include everything, but I’ll try my best to do so while keeping the submission process as painless as possible.
This blog will be mostly for me posting updates, answering questions, or asking for feedback/help. Mostly made this not to clutter up my own, and so you don’t have to follow my personal blog to keep track.
This database you're putting together is such a good idea ! And also thank you so much for also including content warnings, I've lost count of the times I've tried to interact with media recommended for representation of x or y identity only to smack headfirst into some very triggering content that no one gave any warning for. Best of luck in putting all this together !
I really hope it ends up being useful and comprehensive enough! It was a relatively small idea at first, but has grown as I realise different things that can make it more accessible and useful.Feel free to let me know if there’s any specific content warnings/other information you want to see included, and I’ll do my best.
Unrelated to the ask, but I might actually make a sideblog for the project. It’d be better to post updates and take questions/suggestions that way, without taking over this one, and people can keep updated without following me here.
What relationships and/or character arcs would people like to be able to search for/filter? I’m working on improving (well, redoing) that next.
I’m including arcs where there’s a change between any of the character types [Protagonist/Antagonist/Side character/Anti-hero]. Anything else?
Relationship-wise, someone suggested rivals and enemies (which I had completely overlooked somehow), so I wondered if I’m missing any obvious ones like that? So far I have [Friendship/Close friendship/Siblings/Parental/Mentor/QPR/Rivals/Enemies/Sexual relationship] (along with the obvious romantic ones ofc).
RomoAlert: Will the no/low/significant romo levels be different b/c of activities or something else? Will romo be tied to certain activities specifically (ex kissing), or it's a mix of plot, music, activities, etc? As a quoi, I don't always interpret romo where others see it (the idea of RomoAlert sounds nice, but I'm a bit worried I'll skew submissions or something)
The general idea is for romance level to be an overview of explicitly romantic relationships or plots (and their significance) within the media. There should be a lot more nuance in other categories to search for/exclude other things (like activities, relationships).I added my current intent for defining each of the categories on my reblog here, if that makes things a little clearer.
At this point, I’m planning submissions to be marked ‘unverified’ (still optionally searchable) until confirmed by votes and/or mods, so if anything is missed it should be caught at that point. People will also be able to suggest edits, and have those changes verified/voted on too - so there should be plenty of steps for ensuring accurate information, I hope!
